State Gop's Soft Money Is A Pocketful Of Irony

Party Takes $67,000 After Leader Spoke Up For Ban

August 12, 1998|By DAVID LIGHTMAN; Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON — Connecticut's Republican Party, for years the only GOP state party that refused soft money, this spring accepted $67,000 at roughly the same time Republican Gov. John G. Rowland was signing into law a ban on taking such funds beginning next year.

Chris DePino, state GOP chairman, said his party took the money because it will help his party compete with Democrats, who have taken soft money for some time.

``Democrats were a wake-up call,'' said DePino, who as a House member from New Haven supported the ban. ``They're the ones who taught us this lesson.''

In March, just before the House passed the ban, DePino stood up and boasted how his party had taken no soft money. ``We believe the spirit of Connecticut's law should have been followed,'' he explained.

But a week later, the state GOP got four infusions of soft money from a special national Republican party account.

``As long as it's legal, we think we can take it,'' said DePino this week. ``This is a very expensive campaign cycle.'' In his House speech, he pointed out how expensive politics has become.

The party got its first $25,000 on April 1, just a week after the Connecticut House passed the soft money ban. It then was given $17,000 on April 16, and another $25,000 on June 24, about two months after Rowland signed the bill into law.

The money came from a national GOP account called the Republican National State Elections Committee, which helps state parties.

One of the biggest Republican givers to that account was Connecticut's Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which gave $250,000 on June 19, five days before Connecticut's party got $25,000 from the same committee.

DePino, tribal officials and Republican party officials in Washington denied any link between the two contributions.

``We were aware the tribe gave a large contribution to the party and we were happy about it,'' DePino said.

Soft money is at the heart of the furor over campaign finance. Last week in Washington, the House voted overwhelmingly to bar state and national parties from using such funds in connection with federal campaigns. The bill still needs Senate approval; the Senate is in an extended recess and is scheduled to return Aug. 31.

Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, a Washington-based reform group, warned that those who participate in this system could be inviting trouble.

``This rapid escalation in soft money fund-raising means that the kind of campaign-finance scandals that characterized the 1996 elections will continue,'' she said.

State Democrats, who have routinely taken soft money through the years, reported receiving $55,000 during the spring quarter, bringing the total for the first half of 1998 to $117,700.

State Chairman Edward L. Marcus scoffed at DePino's notion that Democrats made Republicans take soft money.

``They do not need [soft] money to maintain their party operation and services,'' Marcus said. ``How much is enough?'' Rowland has raised $4.3 million for his campaign as of the quarter ending July 2, already a state gubernatorial record. Democratic challenger Barbara B. Kennelly has raised about half that much.

But it is difficult to say which party has more resources throughout the state, since there are dozens of different campaigns, all raising money.

Regardless of who uses the funds, what bothers reformers is that soft money can be raised and spent in unlimited amounts. It is supposed to go toward ``party-building'' activities, like voter registration drives or party conventions, and cannot be directly given to candidates.

But what often happens, critics said, is that the money indirectly helps candidates by relieving them of expenses for services such as getting voters to the polls. And, they maintain, soft money hurts the system because it encourages wealthy donors to give as much as they can, creating the impressions that the well-heeled have more influence than the average voter.

In Connecticut, the June GOP soft money helped defray costs of the party's state convention in July, just as Democratic soft money helped finance its convention.

Republican funds also helped pay for expenses related to the GOP's Prescott Bush dinner in June, where $175,000 was raised, and for direct mail and telemarketing expenses.

Connecticut Republicans for years would not take soft money, though DePino contended that the party would accept soft money if it needed it.

``We thought it would be a stretch to accept it,'' said DePino last year, adding he had concerns about state laws. Connecticut has strict limits on how much can be given to a campaign.

Democrats in the 1996 election cycle accepted about $1 million in soft money, and won six of eight House races, control of the state legislature, and saw President Clinton carry the state. Connecticut Republicans took no soft money during the 1996 cycle or in 1997.

But national Republicans encouraged the use of soft money this year, said Michael Collins, national GOP press secretary, because ``Connecticut is going to be ground zero for us in New England.''

He cited a number of races national Republicans want to help: the 5th District congressional seat, the governor's race, control of the legislature and the U.S. Senate race.